Newsweek Princess Diana cover story causes outrage

Newsweeks publicity stunt has worked a treat even if facts are nowhere to be found in the story.

Newsweek magazine in the United States has caused outrage in some circles by publishing a cover photo imagining Princess Diana at 50 and writing a fictional account of her life if she had not died in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Newsweek editor-in-chief Tina Brown has written a story that speculates that Diana would have twice remarried, used Botox, and been slightly jealous of new daughter-in-law Kate Middleton.

The latest issue of Newsweek comes on days out from the official visit to North America by Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Other media outlets and commentators have queued up to heap scorn on the audacious publicity grab.

Tina Brown has previous history with Princess Diana. In 2007 she wrote a biography about the late princess that was high on conjecture and low on facts. Newswarped thinks has stood her in good stead in writing a completely ficticious story about Diana.

Brown says Princess Diana would have moved to New York, remained “great-looking,” been friends with her ex-husband Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla, and have 10 million followers on Twitter.

While the story is causing ripples it is the digitally enhanced cover photo of a slim, chic and wrinkled around the edges Diana walking next to a smiling Kate Middleton that has tipped many people over the edge.

The Newsweek feature also fantasises about Diana’s Facebook page, imagining her “liking” the movie The King’s Speech and TV series The Real Housewives of New York, hanging out with David and Victoria Beckham, and sending supportive messages to spiritual physician Deepak Chopra and Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

But it is her supposed relationship with the new bride of her eldest son, Prince William, where Brown is perhaps most controversial.

“The rising public adoration of Kate would have afforded Diana some tricky moments. Pleased, yes. But….Diana would have had to adjust to a broadening of the limelight,” Brown writes.

Brown also speculates that Diana would have been a defender against royal snobbery of Middleton’s non-aristocratic upbringing “and ostentatiously made Carole Middleton, Kate’s dynamic mother, her new BFF.”

Prince William and Kate Middleton, now formally known as the Duchess of Cambridge, arrive in Canada on Thursday for their first official visit overseas as a married couple. They hit California on July 8-10.